


Dinosaur Teeth

by fingersfallingupwards



Series: Chris Pratt character crossovers and fusions [2]
Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Jurassic World (2015), Parks and Recreation
Genre: April likes bothering Claire, Claire's PoV, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Owen is Andy, Timeline-what-timeline?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 11:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10943850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersfallingupwards/pseuds/fingersfallingupwards
Summary: Owen's wife, April Ludgate, visits the park. Claire learns a lot about her coworker, and about misunderstandings.





	Dinosaur Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't help but write another one of these fusions for Parks and Rec. I need to stop. But Chris Pratt... And now it's a series of fics. We'll see if it goes anywhere. 
> 
> For now, enjoy April meeting Claire Dearing.

“Can I help you, Mr. Grady?” Claire asks, not bothering to look up as she takes a bite of her salad and looks over a report. Her secretary kindly called her scant moments ago when Owen Grady decided to drop by unannounced and blow past the receptionist’s entreating words of ‘please wait,’ and ‘sir, she’s on her only break,’ to speak to Claire in person for a non-emergency. This afternoon is still going better than some on the prehistoric island she runs.

“Care to explain to me why my appeal to have a visitor hasn’t been processed yet?” Owen asks.

Claire looks up from her salad to see him standing in front of her desk, hands on his hips.

Claire finishes chewing her crouton before answering. “Mr. Grady—“

“Owen.”

“ _Owen_ ,” she concedes. She doesn’t mean to still address him formally. After their unfortunate date, it seemed better to have some distance. It’s been long enough she doesn’t need to force the matter, it’s just a hard habit to break, really.

“I’ve been overseeing a new construction project for the past two weeks, and have had a lot of meetings to talk about ethics. Your request is entirely valid, but the fact you’re pushing this on me for a rush job instead of going through the normal channels—“

“I know it’s late notice, but it’s the only time she’ll be able to get here. She’s visiting Puerto Rico right now, so she’s already close, she just needs a ticket and permit for the island. We weren’t planning this, but it’s the first opportunity since I came to the island!” Owen says in a rush.

Perhaps it’s a family member, but Claire can’t help but wonder if this is a girlfriend from the main lands. If so, then she isn’t impressed. The fact that he asked Claire herself on a date, not too long after meeting her, makes her pause rather than inciting her ire. Because she likes to think of Owen as being better than that, but she also recalls that she sees him eating with the other female trainers rather often. She wonders if maybe her skepticism shows on her because his tone increases in seriousness and also pleading.

“I know I should have gone through proper channels and done all that, but it’s too late now, and this might be the only time I get to see her in the next couple of years. _Please.”_ His face is incredibly open.

As dubious as she might be of the identity of his visitor, Claire considers herself a fair woman, so she caves, even though it makes extra work for her.

“As you are aware, when outside, non-essential personnel visit the island without going through the proper background checks, the liability goes through the roof for the park. We have these checks to prevent those situations. Without them, there’s a lot of risks for people in positions of power.”

“I will take whatever responsibility I need to,” Owen says. “She’ll sign any paper and waive any right.”

Claire pauses to reorder her thoughts. She sort of wonders if this visitor really knows what she’s getting into, and who Owen feels comfortable enough speaking for.

“Regardless, the risk falls on me. I’ll be doing a briefing myself and doing regular check-ins,” Claire says, already trying to figure out how on earth to rearrange her schedule to fit in this ridiculous favor. The bursting grin her concession earns soothes Claire’s building headache.

“Thank you. Thank you so much, Claire!” Owen smile is so unladen with pretense it’s startling. Claire smiles back a little uncertainly before waving him out of the office.

After Owen leaves, Claire pulls up her email and skims three pages worth of mail to find the message Owen sent her three days ago. Really, he had no right to expect her to have looked at it so soon, but the color tagging the request form told her how rushed of a rush permit he was asking for.

From what Claire can see, the overworked entry staff hasn’t even had the time to put together a preliminary profile. It usually takes three months for the background checks to be run for them to admit people to the park. It’s one reason people have called it the “trip of the lifetime.” It’s quite the process to get to the park to begin with. Admittedly, the lengthy system is flawed, but after someone is in the computer logs, the process is practically halved. People keep coming back, making it a trip twice, or thrice a lifetime. Money’s being made and it isn’t within her power to change anything yet anyways, with how secure the park needs to be in all things.

Due to those reasons and more, the only information they have on Owen’s guest is the form he submitted on her behalf three days ago.

Claire reads the bare details. Her name is April Ludgate, she’s twenty-six years old. She lives in Washington D.C and works at a non-profit of some kind. Only the barest facts have been filled out, and Claire catches a spelling error or two in the preceding paragraph where Owen’s explaining the situation that shows just how rushed this is.

She really shouldn’t be doing this… but Owen has been putting a lot of time into making Jurassic World a success. Skimming his information, she sees that this will be the first guest he’s ever had on the island, not even family. Claire supposes that maybe the Claire herself and Owen are somewhat similar in that aspect at least…

Of course, Claire doesn’t have a woman from the mainland coming to visit her on exceptionally short notice, so maybe not.

+

Claire barely manages to eke out of her office to make it to the dock in time. After all the legal hoops she had to dance through to appease the lawyers, Claire somehow managed to secure a visitors pass for someone they have only rudimentary knowledge of. She frankly doesn’t know how she did it.

She did, somehow, and now she’s committed to spending at least three hours a day with the guest to evaluate their health, behavior, state of mind, etc. Not remotely what Claire wants to do with her time, but she reluctantly admits that maybe she owes Owen a little for the last fiasco. Still, she hopes they stick to the three day time-limit Owen negotiated for April. That totals about nine hours. Put that way, maybe it’s manageable.

Claire spots Owen near the edge of the dock alongside Barry. The area is relatively empty compared to the utter madness that will ensue once the ship docks. Workers line the sides, and Claire can see them bracing themselves for the impending onslaught. She nods and smiles to the employees who wave at her as she makes her way to Owen and Barry.

“Who’s watching the raptors?” she asks.

Barry’s mouth lifts a little. “Good afternoon. We left Lowry in charge. He promises to alert us if there’s anything we need to rush back for. Otherwise, Leon’s on direct watch. He’s just got to feed the girls, and they’ll be pretty lethargic afterwards.”

Claire nods. Not ideal circumstances, but satisfactory. She tilts her head at the absence of Owen’s general chattiness. She sees the other man staring intently at the boat, rocking back on his heels a little. He seems genuinely anxious. He’s even running his hands through his hair, as if, for once in his life, he’s concerned about whether he looks presentable or not. Actually, now that she takes the time to look, he’s wearing nicer clothes than normal, no mud or dirt to be seen, which is rather impressive considering the park’s general dustiness.

“Two minutes to landing,” Barry says aloud, getting Owen to turn and look at Barry for a moment.

“It’s been three years,” Owen says, tone rather complex.

Claire opens her mouth to ask about who exactly April is, but the crackling of the radio on his belt stops her.

“Hey, uh, Owen. We’ve got kind of an issue.”

Owen all but growl into the radio. “What?”

“Woah, no need to get worked up,” Lowry quickly says. “You said to call if anything was happening, and Echo just started attacking Charlie for some reason and Leon is kind of freaking out…”

“Just—“

Owen is cut off by the loud blaring of music and the welcoming message playing on the speakers. He makes a sound of irritation before he heads up the dock, away from the noise.

“I’ll be right back.” He hurriedly walks down the dock as he starts rattling off directions to Leon via Lowry.

Claire finds herself alone on the dock with Barry as the ship begins to dock. Claire realizes that she has no idea how to catch April’s attention. She digs through her purse to find her tablet and opens the Word application and types APRIL LUDGATE in a large font size. As she holds it in front of her she finds irritation welling up that she, one of the head directors of the park, is acting as a chauffeur to a guest. Entirely Owen’s fault, predictably.

“I thought maybe you’d be taking care of the raptors while Owen met April,” she says to Barry as the boarding platform hits the deck.

“And miss meeting Owen’s boo? No way,” Barry replies with a smile.

Claire blinks and starts to ask what that’s supposed to mean, but the roar of the crowd descending from the ship cut her off entirely.

Claire hasn’t seen a disembarking of this size yet, so she’s a little in awe of the amount of people swarming to get off the ship. It’s one thing to see the number on paper, and another to witness it in person. A note of pride flickers in her chest. She helped make this possible.

She’s so preoccupied watching the guests ooh and ahh at the impressive park that she almost misses the woman heading towards them before stopping just a bit away. The woman, like all the guests, has her pass hanging on the end of a lanyard around her neck. Squinting, Claire can confirm her identity.

April has brunette hair and pretty features. She’d probably be prettier if she was smiling. As it is, she glares and looks generally unamused. She’s wearing a short blue dress and a jacket with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. With her petite frame and pleasing, but not wowing features, she does not look like the super model Claire now realizes she was expecting.

“Where’s Andy?” April asks. Her voice has a dark lilt to it and Claire hesitates as she puts her tablet back into her bag. After a second, April continues. “I mean, Owen, or whatever.”

“You must be April Ludgate. Owen is dealing with a problem with the raptors. He’ll be back any minute now,” Claire stretches out a hand. “My name is Claire Dearing. I’m the director of this park.”

April doesn’t shake it. She stares until Claire retracts her hand.

“I’m Barry,” Barry introduces himself, not bothering to attempt a shake. “I work with Owen at the raptor paddock.”

“Then why aren’t you dealing with this raptor thing instead of Andy?” April asks, completely deadpan.

Wow. She has to be one of the most unpleasant people Claire has met in a while. And Claire works with cutthroat lawyers. She can’t even imagine what Owen could find charming in someone so standoffish. She’s beginning to question whether or not she believes Barry’s assertion that April is Owen’s ‘boo.’

Barry is clearly having similar thoughts as he struggles to find some kind of acceptable answer. The chilly silence is indescribably uncomfortable amongst the happy park visitors.

“April!” The two of them are saved from the awkwardness by Owen, who is hastily cutting through the crowds. “April, babe, I’m so sorry. There was a raptor thing, and Echo was fighting Charlie because Leon fed them in the wrong order and—“

“Stop talking and just kiss me already!”  April smiles and it eases the sternness of her face considerably. Owen, now up to a jog, does just that. He sweeps April off her feet, spinning her around a few times before locking lips with her in a kiss so passionate it seems lewd. It’s everything seen in romantic movies and then some, because romantic movies don’t usually heat up as quickly as this. April presses against Owen insistently until they hit a railing, and then pushes more so they end up lying on the ground, April sitting on top of Owen, his hands running all over her body, lips-locked and moaning.

“Owen!” Claire can’t help the scandal in her tone as the guests at the park ogle and a few even take pictures.

He tries to sit up, but April pushes him down again. The two play the game for a few moments before Owen eventually bests her and the two are standing again. Owen has his arms wrapped around April from the back, holding her close to him. April’s expression is back to blank.

“Sorry, that was probably inappropriate.”

Barry coughs something like ‘probably?’’

“I haven’t seen my wife in two years, cut me some slack.” He turns to April again, completely missing their gobsmacked expressions. “Babe, I missed you so freaking much.”

“Me too, babe.”

“You wife?” Claire manages.

“Yeah, this is April Ludgate-Grady. The most awesome person in the world.” His love-struck tone doesn’t quite pierce the shock Barry and Claire feel.

“You’re married?” Barry says.

“Um, yeah? You knew, right?”

“You said you had a special someone, but you never said anything about marriage,” Barry says.

“Didn’t I?” Owen asks, but he’s still mostly distracted with running his hands over April’s shoulders.

Claire shouldn’t say it. She really shouldn’t. She has better control than this. But the words just slip out.

“But you had a date with me!”

There’s a pause in Owen’s motions. His expression goes wide with surprise and April tenses in his arms.

“I did not!” he exclaims before turning to April. “Babe, I totally did not!”

“Andy…” April grits out. Her glare, and Claire did not know it could get any sharper, is centered only on Owen. “Is she telling the truth?”

“No, I would never!” Owen quickly rebuts.

Claire’s temper flairs at his blatant lying.

“The second week we were on the island, you asked me out. It was awful. You wore board shorts to the date and I got _frustrated_ and we didn’t even go out to dinner,” she explains.

Owen stares at her for a long moment. “I asked you out to dinner as a friend. You thought I was asking you out on a date?!”

Claire pauses and runs the interactions over in her mind. And then again. And again.

Once more.

She remembers their introduction at a company meet-and-greet, remembers his cool gaze, how he kept his gaze always on hers, never drifting to the cut of her dress. How he invited her to dinner with an entreating smile. The little touches, lingering glances, the little things that told her this was more than just friendliness…

Swallowing, she dissects it a little, realizes that his cool and non-wandering gaze could easily have been disinterest in her appearance instead, because he is a decent married man. His entreating could just have been desire to know more about his new director. Little touches, could easily be ‘accidental’ touches, and a million other things that she misunderstood.

And she feels creeping horror and humiliation as she realizes that she may have jumped to conclusions.

“That’s why you were angry I wore board shorts.” Owen makes a sound of understanding. Claire is still in shock. “I never got that.”

“I— I see. I may have misconstrued things…” Now she just needs to reevaluate her entire relationship with Owen to see what else she’s missed. April’s glare is transferred to Claire and the older woman shivers a little.

“Seriously, I never would, babe. I love you. Don’t doubt that. And when would I have the time? We skype every night and during the day I’m with the pack. Barry, you can confirm that, right?”

Barry nods his head, the motion somewhat jerky, and Claire feels relieved that she clearly is not the only one who is realizing they don’t really understand Owen at all, actually. If all his flirtatious behavior is misconstrued like it seems it is, at the moment, then a big basis of her understanding of him is completely wrong. He has a wife who he skypes with daily, and calls ‘babe’ with glee. Her image of his rough, playboy mystique is shifting rapidly to try and patch the holes he’s just made in her understanding.

April turns to Owen and stares for a long, long moment before she eventually makes a vague shoulder gesture that has Owen smiling like he won the lottery.

“Come on. I wanna to show you my place. We can visit the girls tomorrow if you’re up for it. You’re going to love it.”

“Mr. Grady, I still have to debrief April,” Claire reminds him.

“That’s _Señora April;_ _Dueña del Mundo_ to you,” April says.

Claire stares at April, trying to figure out for the life of her how serious the other woman is, and why she’s so difficult.

Owen, unhelpful, just laughs. “You forgot your middle name, _Roberta_.”

“Andy,” she smirks and knocks shoulders with him. As with last time, her expression immediately falls back into apathy as her gaze shifts to Claire.

“What’s the deal with Andy?” Barry chimes in.

“My middle name is Andrew. There was another Owen in my kindergarten class so I just went by Andy and it stuck until I joined the military,” Owen explains.

Claire tilts her head and tries to picture him as an Andy but can’t quite manage it. Regardless, she has places to be— most of which are thankfully away from Owen and his strange, strange wife.

“Let’s move into the main building so I can give you a presentation and explain park policies,” Claire says.

“I’ll just head back to the paddock to make sure Leon has a hold on things,” Barry says. Claire imagines he had planned on hanging around with April to get to know her, but that was before he actually met April and spent five minutes in her glacial presence and had a change of heart. He’s lucky he can escape.  Nothing short of a dinosaur on the loose or the loss of a major investor could get Claire out of this.

“Thanks, man,” Owen says, still glued to April.

April glances over at Barry with disregard.

“If you lose a hand, be sure to save the skin flap. I’m making a skin-scrap book.”

Barry and Claire stare at her again in disbelief, waiting for the ‘ _psych!’_ that isn’t coming. She never breaks character, her lips never move and she doesn’t even _blink_. Barry manages an awkward half-laugh before he shakes his head and heads off.

…Leaving Claire with April and Owen, the latter of whom seems impossibly ignorant about the utter weirdness happening, quite literally, beneath his nose (as the two have yet to separate).

“If you’ll just follow me.” Claire feels nothing but dread as she leads them into the central hub.

While the other new arrivals are still mingling in the main street, gawking and talking up a small roar of noise, April is mostly quiet. Owen keeps up a genial chatter between the two, with April replying with answers too soft for Claire to hear. If Owen’s chuckling is to be believed, it’s a hilarious commentary, but Claire has learned in the past ten minutes that she should really go over his psych eval again. Agreeing to train velociraptors is surely a sign that _something_ is awry with his mental health, but this suggests something entirely else that he should probably see someone about.

While the main hub is generally for the park guests only, with lots of interactive areas for adults, teens, and children alike, there are some conference rooms tucked aside for special visitors and their guests. Due to Claire’s intervention, April technically falls under the former.

Claire leads them into a pristine, edgy conference room. Claire takes a seat near the head of the table and tries not to grit her teeth as April sits on the left at the very end of the table. Owen consequently settles at the end, opposite of Claire. The table seats ten comfortably, so there is an awkward amount of space.

Claire isn’t going to ask April to move closer, she’s pretty sure that won’t be happening, and she really would prefer to get this over with as soon as possible.

Claire sits down and explains with as much clinical detachment as possible the expectations the park has for April considering her special status. April chews her gum loudly while Owen plays with her hair. The only reason Claire knows April is paying attention is because she asks very unhelpful questions.

Questions like:

“How many people have died here?”

“Do you have a personal cemetery? Can I go there? Can we commune with the spirits? Can I be buried here?”

“Can I use the dinosaur bones to make vampire teeth for Halloween?”

And the ever unhelpful aside,

“This is taking forever.”

Owen keeps pretty much out of it. Halfway through Claire gets to witness him pick April up from her seat and settle her on her lap for an impromptu braiding session. April keeps up her snipping without a hitch. Were Claire less in control of herself, she would take a picture of Owen Grady, raptor trainer, French braiding his wife’s hair. As it is, she can only partially boggle while deflecting April’s questions.

After he ties off the braid and April is examining it, Claire uses the moment to make eye-contact with Owen and gesture sharply to April in agitation. He gives her a sheepish smile which doesn’t do much to soothe Claire’s temper, but he does settle April.

He puts his hand over hers. “Hon, the sooner Claire finishes, the sooner I can show you my house.”

April stares at him for a moment.

“Aaand, I will take you anywhere on the island to look for bones,” Owen adds

Claire clears her throat.

“Anywhere I’m allowed to go,” he amends.

April exhales before she settles and gives a small roll of her eyes.

Claire takes this as the concession it is and proceeds with the rest of the discussion. Though the gum smacking doesn’t stop, the sarcasm is kept to a quiet minimum.

Claire feels more exhausted after this thirty minute lecture than she has after a two hour presentation followed by rigorous questioning by investors.

“Now.” Claire pulls out her tablet, some paper work for April to sign, and a visitor’s pass. “If I can get your signature on these, we can go ahead and get you on your way.” Claire has to stand and walk over to give the papers to April, but at this point she’s glad the sarcastic little imp is sitting far away from her grasp to reduce whatever malicious temptations her imagination has dreamt up.

April slowly scans the documents before taking the supplied pen and signing and initialing every available space. After that, she haphazardly slides the pile of papers down the table back to Claire who arranges them with an irritable sigh.

“Last thing,” Claire says, ignoring April’s groan. “I need to fill in some holes in your application.”

April sighs, which Claire now knows means, ‘go ahead, I guess.’ Claire taps on her tablet to reach the page regarding April’s personal details and hits the edit button.

“Miss—“ Claire stumbles. “Mrs. Ludgate, is that your true surname?”

“Only in February. March it’s Snakehole and everything else is Hitler.”

Claire’s fingers twitch, the irritation only welling more when Owen laughs _again._

“It’s Ludgate,” he explains. “We never officially changed it to Ludgate-Grady.”

“Have you graduated college?” Claire asks.

“Yeah.”

Claire is typing all the information into her pad. “What was your major?”

“Halloween Studies.”

Claire stares at April, inwardly livid at her insistent disregard for Claire and her time. She looks to Owen for support, but he’s looking calmly back at Claire.

“We can’t go further until you give an actual answer,” Claire says, honing her anger into cool fire. “I don’t think you want to be here, and I don’t much appreciate my time being wasted, so please, can we do away with your posturing and adolescent games?”

April raises a brow. Owen looks a little upset at Claire for god-knows what reason his slanted brain cooked up.

“Claire—“ Owen starts with a stern tone. April cuts him off and levels Claire with a lazy look.

“I majored in Halloween Studies at Pawnee Community College. It was a ‘build-your-own-major’ shtick.”

She’s heard of those. Her cousin is embroiled in one centering on ecumenical issues. And if Owen’s hard gaze says anything, it’s that he believes his wife is telling the truth so Claire and April stare for a long moment before Claire retreats, smothering her embarrassment that’s built after losing her temper even slightly at April.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding.” Claire’s words earn her no reaction from April, but Owen eases a little.

There’s a moment of silence before Claire continues.

“What is your current occupation?”

“Coffin catalogue model,” April says.

Owen smiles. “She’s the personal assistant of the VP of the American Service Foundation.”

Claire blinks at the name. She’s heard of them. They’re quite a well-to-do, non-profit with claws in Washington D.C.; Claire wants to ask them to be serious, but she knows better than to question after the last fiasco. She’ll get the confirmation of the real facts later tonight even if she has to stay up late.

“How long have you been there?”

“Three years.”

“Do you have any children?” Claire asks, realizing she doesn’t know.

“No.”

“Not yet,” Owen says.

“No.” April says.

That’s a loaded topic if Claire ever saw one. She moves on.

“Any food allergies?”

“Delusional women. Which is why you’ll sleep well tonight.”

Claire stops again, can’t help herself. “Excuse me?”

Owen seems to have finally grasped the real tension between the two of them and he laughs a little nervously.

“There’s nothing else. She got all her injections and was screened before she went to Puerto Rico, and then got her boosters yesterday.”

Claire nods stiffly.

“Those are the big holes in your file. Now that we have confirmed you don’t have professional conflicting interests, you are free to roam within the boundaries outlined in the packet you signed. Owen should be able to make sure you’re in the right area.” Claire hesitates. “I don’t know if you are aware, but this is a very irregular occurrence considering the short notice of your visit. I hope you’ll keep that in mind during your stay. Finally, as the one responsible for your actions in the park—” Claire has never regretted a decision more in her life. “—I will be checking in with you regularly for three hours a day.”

That earns a reaction from April, but Claire is too equally miserable to enjoy it.

Claire glances at her watch. “This was a bit less than an hour.” How that’s possible, Claire doesn’t know. “If I may suggest, I have a couple hours in the late afternoon and we could perhaps tour some of the attractions.”

Owen and April stare at each other for a moment before April shrugs.

“Sure, sounds good. We’ll just get April settled, and reconvene here at three or four?”

“Three would be preferable.”

“Alright, see you then. Let’s go,” Owen says to April, gently urging her out the door. After April exits, he pauses for a moment and turns to Claire.

“Thank you, Claire,” Owen says, and his smile is so wide and genuine it’s almost unfamiliar to her. “You don’t know how much this means to me.” Then he’s gone and Claire is alone in the conference room.

On one hand, she’s trying to understand what choices she’s made lead to this moment of bad karma. The other hand is contemplating the earnest emotion on Owen Grady’s face and trying to decide if it’s worth it.

Claire sighs. Another mystery to the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> I think April seems a little terrible in the opinion of people who don't know her. That changes over time. How Andy got to Owen when most of the series is still canonical, is a story for later... maybe I'll write a second chapter. 
> 
> Also, sure, Owen's playboy thing could be misinterpreted. It happens all the time, esp when I write fanfic...
> 
> Might be a two-shot. Tell me what y'all think!


End file.
